Model kits are widely used by educators, hobby enthusiasts and the like. The assembly of a model can be used as an educational tool to teach school-age children about the subject matter represented by the model. A model builder, such as the school-age child, would quickly lose interest in the model if the assembly of the model was too simple. Under these circumstances, the model builder would not expend much time and effort assembling the model and, consequently, the model builder would learn very little about the subject matter that the model is intended to represent.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,393,163 to Rasely discloses an educational toy that includes a set of building blocks and a ground plan associated with the building blocks that together convey an impressionistic view of a city. It is disclosed that the educational toy is directed to instructing children as to the schematic layout of a given city, including its buildings and points of interest. The building blocks are made of a material such as artificial stone, which are adapted to fit in fixed or stationary, predetermined mounting positions on a schematic ground plan. The building blocks are pre-fabricated and are provided with the contour, outlines, color schemes, markings and proportions that convey an impressionistic idea of a particular building. The preassembled buildings blocks of the toy are merely placed in designated positions on the ground plan, but are not intended to be assembled or otherwise manipulated.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,873,748 to Favreau discloses a model for a building comprising a body having the exterior representation of a building, a removable drawer disposed in said body, which corresponds to a floor plan of the building.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,931 to Debs discloses a pedestal device for the three dimensional representation of buildings and other physical objects. The pedestal device includes a plurality of individual pedestal parts that are adapted to be stacked one upon another, and where the topmost pedestal part is adapted to receive a representation of a building or other physical object for display through a slot.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,315,463 to Tingley et al. discloses an architectural model of a residential home comprising a number of interchangeable model units. The model is intended to be used by the untrained home planner who is seeking a desirable design plan for a residential home to be built. The units are made from wood, metal and plastic. In addition, the roof units and foundation are constructed of solid blocks. None of the units are disclosed as being assembled from foldable, self-supporting material.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,635,359 to Broscious discloses a building model for providing a three dimensional representation of a building design. The building model includes (i) a basic block element composed of a series of adjacent individual blocks that collectively are shaped to represent a building unit, (ii) a paper cover covering the basic block element that is marked with representations of the structural details of the building unit and (iii) a removable sheet material cover piece having walls adapted to fit snugly over the basic block element to represent the exterior of the building unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,400 to Johnson discloses a three dimensional educational toy model of a community development that is intended to educate persons in the designing and laying out of a housing or community development. The toy model includes a base member depicting a plan view of a community layout thereon and a number of structural support profiles for retaining soil that is to be placed between the structural support profiles on the base member. The soil is specifically intended to be filled into the base member to shape and fill in the landscape of the community development. The model and kit, however, do not include any assembled or unassembled models of building structures.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,360,365 to Evans discloses a model kit of a sports stadium including a base member, a scaled playing surface member, a body member, a scaled exterior member and accessory members.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,404 to Norfleet discloses a complex modular building model comprising a base member having a number of frame units that include module attachment members, a lower level module disposed on and engaged with the base and an upper level building module is disposed on and engaged with the lower level building module. The engaging, connecting or latching of (i) base to module and (ii) module to module is carried out through the use of screws, tension bands, clamps, springs, clasps, snaps or the like.
A kit for assembling a model of a California Franciscan Mission is commercially available from Canyon Foam Design of Riverside, Calif. The model kit includes a number of model individual pieces of rigid, non-foldable expanded polystyrene. The preformed pieces of rigid, non-foldable expanded polystyrene cannot be folded or otherwise manipulated by the model builder.
None of the above art, whether taken alone or in combination, discloses the model building structure or model kit of the present invention. As such, there still exists a need in the art to provide an model kit for assembling realistic models of the various historical building structures.